It's been over a year since Victoria Woodhull &amp Company
first offered a $200 reward to the first person to provide
a genuine copy of an Ottawa, Illinois 1863 or 1864 "Cult of Love" ad. To
date no one has presented primary evidence that Victoria Woodhull
was a prostitute, so the reward remains unclaimed.

In Barbara Goldsmith's 1998
biography of Victoria Woodhull, "Other Powers," published by Alfred A.
Knopf, she stated on page 81 that Buck Claflin"advertised in the
Ottawa Free Trader that on the first floor of the Fox River House
lessons in the 'cult of love' were to be taught. In the summer of 1863,
there were several complaints that the extra rooms at the Fox River
House were being used for assignations and that Buck's daughters were
prostitutes. The charges were never proved."In
Goldsmith's notes on page 460 she provides the source as follows:"'cult
of love': Ottawa Free Trader (April 4, 1863), courtesy of Chicago
History Works...."

All four pages of the April 4,
1863 edition of the Ottawa Free Trader are now online through the
Library of Congress:

You can see for yourself
there's no "Cult of Love" ad in the Apr. 4, 1863 edition of the Ottawa
Free Trader. Considering that it was perhaps a typo, I checked other
dates and other Ottawa, Illinois papers, but I still couldn't find an ad
for the "Cult of Love" or even an article in the Free Trader in the
1860's accusing the Claflins of prostitution. The earliest mention I can
find for the "cult of love" in reference to the Claflins is on page 35
of Emanie Sachs's 1928 book "The Terrible Siren:"The Claflins did well
enough in Ottawa to rent the Fox River House, the town's oldest hotel
for a cancer infirmary, where the 'cult of love' was taught
incidentally."The
Terrible Siren isn't footnoted, so Sachs's source for the phrase is
unknown. I even sent an email to Chicago History Works asking them for
the copy of the ad they supposedly provided to Barbara Goldsmith. They
had no idea what I was talking about, although I do admit I contacted
them years after the fact. Perhaps whoever obtained it was no longer
with the company. This "cult of love ad" is one of a very few pieces of
alleged evidence that Victoria's sister Tennessee Claflin could've been a
prostitute in the 1860's, and it can't be found and a copy of it has
never been published by anyone, including Barbara Goldsmith who cited it
as a source in her book.

Barbara Goldsmith is one of the
authors who presents as a "fact" that Victoria Woodhull and her sister
were prostitutes rather than presenting it as a debatable point of
history that may or may not be true. I present the family point of view
that Victoria was never a prostitute. At first she ignored the
allegations, according to her on the advice of attorneys, but eventually
was involved in at least two libel lawsuits in the 1870's denying the
allegations. The accusations angered and depressed her. So, to every
person who says she was definitely a prostitute, prove me and Victoria
wrong! Show proof aside from the libelous Joseph Treat pamphlet and the
libelous and discredited 1892 Chicago Mail articles. (One of the Chicago Mail sources, "Mr. Brace" who said
Tennessee Claflin ran a "house of assignation" in Cincinnati, has now been identified. He was known
to the Chicago police as a "liar.") If Victoria Woodhull was a prostitute, then someone should be able to produce primary
evidence like an arrest record, court record, or newspaper account from
the 1850's and 1860's showing any of the Claflin sisters were
prostitutes. Produce the "Cult of Love" ad that Buck Claflin is supposed
to have published. If the ad exists, I'll publish it here and send $200
to the first person who provides it to me. I'm waiting....

A few years ago I traveled to
Ottawa, Illinois in search of the ad. Someone at the Historical Society
said it was very unlikely that an ad for prostitution would have been
printed in Ottawa newspapers at that time. While I didn't find any ads
for the "Cult of Love," I did find ads for Dr. R.B. Claflin and for
Tennessee Claflin. Here's a typical ad for Tennessee Claflin in the
April 9, 1864 edition of the Ottawa Free Trader. Make of it what you
will:

RESEARCHING VICTORIA WOODHULL by Mary L. Shearer

My mother was the one who introduced me to Col. Blood. She showed me
his picture which was labeled "Col. J.H. Blood," and I was drawn to it. We
pulled out the Fogg family genealogy by her cousin Lillian Fogg Lee and
learned together that Colonel Blood was married to her great-grandmother and
that before that he was married to Victoria
Woodhull. When my mother was born in Michigan in 1927, Victoria Woodhull
was still alive, although Victoria would die a few days later in
England; so to me, the era of Victoria Woodhull doesn't seem that long
ago. I've had the opportunity to stand on the Indian mound in Homer
where she played as a child, visited the grave of her
spirit guide Rachel Scribner and visited several other towns where
she lived.

By remarkable coincidence I learned that Victoria Woodhull had been
arrested for selling obscene pamphlets in 1873 in Jackson, Michigan,
where my business was founded, and the man who had her arrested was
Judge Videto. When my Uncle Richard Shearer
celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary, I ended up seated next to a
descendant of Judge Videto's brother. He was a friend of my uncle. What
a small world!

For nearly 20 years I've been doing in-depth research about Victoria
Woodhull, Colonel Blood, and their families. Based on all the
information I've discovered about Victoria Woodhull that others haven't,
I probably know more about Victoria Woodhull's life in America than
anyone else in the world. Most people who write about Victoria's life
between 1838-1869 rely primarily on the 1928 biography "Terrible Siren"
by Emanie Sachs instead of consulting original records and newspapers
from that time. They repeat the errors Sachs made: Canning Woodhull's
father wasn't a judge, Col. Blood wasn't a Colonel, there was no
marriage of an Underwood to a Hamilton, etc. By seeking primary
evidence, I uncovered Victoria's secret
1865 marriage record and
documentation of her 1868
divorcewhich was
supposed to be non-existent because of the Great Chicago Fire. I
discovered proof that Col. Blood was, in fact,divorced
from his wife Mary before he and Victoria married in Dayton, Ohio in
1866. (Some writers have speculated he never divorced his first wife.) I
also discovered thefirst
marriage record,of
Victoria's sister, the future Lady Tennessee Cook, Viscountess of
Monserrate. I've uncovered records for the Homer fire that show that every single biographer got the story wrong. The records show Buck Claflin was likely innocent of arson and remained in Homer for years after the fire. I've also identified family members who were previously unknown
or known by their last names only, trying to flesh out a more complete
picture ofthe
familythat surrounded
Victoria Woodhull and Colonel Blood.

It irks me that so many writers seek out intimate details of the
private lives of the Claflins, Woodhulls, Bloods, and Martins, and claim
to know for a FACT everything about Victoria Woodhull's love life, but
neglect to get simple facts right like a name. For nearly 70 years
writers referred to Colonel Blood's first wife as "Mrs. Blood" never
bothering to find out her full name. When Barbara Goldsmith finally gave
a first name to his first wife in 1998, it was the wrong one! She said
his first wife was "Isabel" not Mary Ann Clapp Harrington.

I've seen an article on SIU's web site that claims my web site
doesn't follow the published books on this topic. Why should I when I
know that some of what has been published about my own family is
incorrect. Using Emanie Sachs as his source, M.M. Marberry on page 242
of his 1967 biography "Vicky," wrote about Colonel and my Nanna Blood as
follows: "His bride was the mother of Frank Fogg, who was a man his own
age. The widow had money and she financed an expedition to mine gold in
Africa." Thanks to Sachs and Marberry the impression given over the
decades was that Nanna Blood was a wealthy, elderly widow that Colonel
Blood had married only for her money, and that he was still madly in
love with Victoria when he died and trying to win her back with gold. As
a member of his step-son's family, I can tell you with certainty that
Isabell was a divorcee, not a widow. Her entire divorce settlement was
definitely less than $800 (less than $20,000 in today's dollars) so she
certainly wasn't wealthy when Colonel Blood married her. Nanna Blood was
born in November 1833 and Colonel Blood in December 1833. My
great-grandfather Frank Fogg was born in 1854 and therefore not a man of
Colonel Blood's age. While these details may be unimportant to some
people, it indicates that Victoria's biographers don't always have their
facts right. That's the reason I double check their research.

This branch of Foggs wasn't and still isn't a wealthy family. The
amount of gold returned to this country by Frank Fogg in 1887 was only
$25,000. As a young man, Frank Fogg was a shoemaker and a schoolteacher.
Later he was a labor orator, newspaper editor, small-town lawyer, and
Greenback politician. Only my great-great-aunt Fannie Fogg Koss and her
daughter were "rich" and that was largely because Fannie married the
attorney for the wealthy Wendel family in 1889 four years after
Colonel's death. (Fannie was Col. Blood's step-daughter and supposedly
left an estate of about a million dollars in 1927.) It wasn't until
years after Col. Blood's death that Nanna Blood made money buying and
selling real estate, too late for money to have been a motive for their
marriage. While she was well-off enough to leave a total of about
$14,000 in cash bequests (worth about $369,000 today), she was hardly a
Rockefeller or a Vanderbilt and none of her money passed down to my
mother. My mother was a stay-at-home mom and my father was a letter
carrier.

Several times the "facts" that other writers have printed have
resulted in sending me off on expensive, wild goose chases, and people
wonder why I question everything I read in her biographies. One author
said Colonel Blood had one son and a daughter. I knew the name of Col.
Blood's only daughter, but I spent years looking for the son until I
found him. I was in the NY Public Library reading correspondence between
Benjamin Ricketson Tucker and Emanie Sachs. One of the letters mentioned
Colonel Blood's "son." Finally I would learn his name and find out what
happened to him! The letter went on to say that Col. Blood's son went to
Africa to bring back the body and that his daughter-in-law was pregnant.
All of a sudden I realized the son I had been looking for all these
years was my great-grandfather and that his "daughter-in-law" (my
great-grandmother) was pregnant with my grandfather! I laughed when I
saw how my family was described as the "genteel poor." How different was this portrayal of my family compared to M.M.
Marberry. Years later I discovered a birth record for what is most
likely Col. Blood's real son, an unnamed infant who died in St. Louis.

So what is my point? If you are doing research about Victoria
Woodhull, please seek out primary evidence about Victoria Woodhull and
her family instead of relying on third party accounts and hearsay
evidence that in some cases can be proven to be incorrect. If an author
can produce primary evidence that Victoria Woodhull was a prostitute,
I'll be happy to change my opinion and admit that Victoria covered it up
and denied it in spite of the evidence. But until someone can produce
primary evidence that Victoria Woodhull was a prostitute, I consider her
to be a victim of vicious rumor and innuendo.

TWO WOODHULL MOVIES IN THE WORKS
by Mary L. Shearer

The first attempt to bring Victoria Woodhull to the movie screen was in the 1920's not long after her death. Emanie Sachs, whose husband was on the board of directors of Warner Brothers Studios,
wanted Warner Brothers to produce a movie based on her 1928 Woodhull biography, "The Terrible Siren." They passed on it. Since then numerous women have aspired to play Victoria Woodhull--Carol
Channing, Katherine Hepburn, Faye Dunaway, Nicole Kidman--but their projects never made it to the silver screen. There have been several plays and operas about Victoria Woodhull. Celeste Holm even
played her in the 1960 TV movie "The Right Man," but the epic biopic about her has yet to be made.

Now there are at least two movie projects about Victoria Woodhull that are hoping to make it to theaters. Painted Saint Entertainment is currently in development for Revolution Now. Their drama about Victoria Woodhull is expected to be the first in a series of films "to return women to their rightful place in
history."

The second project is from Amazon Studios. They've announced via Deadline that Brie Larson will play the role of Victoria Woodhull. Deadline's logline claims that Victoria's "con-artist father taught her and her sisters to channel spirits in front of crowds to
bilk the superstitious." If that's the plot for the movie, it's going to be one more in a long list of historically inaccurate works about Victoria Woodhull. Thanks to a muddled chronology in
"The Terrible Siren," it's commonly assumed that Victoria's father Buck Claflin exploited both Victoria and Tennessee as child clairvoyants. Actually it was only Tennessee Claflin who made
money as a child clairvoyant. That should have been clear to anyone who's read Theodore Tilton's 1871 biography which was based on the notes of Victoria's second husband Col. Blood. The biography mentioned
nothing about Victoria working for money as a child clairvoyant. It said that Victoria's "spiritual vision" went back to her "third year" but she made no money as a clairvoyant until after she
lived in San Francisco with her first husband Dr. Woodhull. Tilton wrote, "Hitherto her clairvoyant faculty had been put to no pecuniary use, but she was now directed by the spirits to repair to
Indianapolis, there to announce herself as a medium..." Tilton didn't provide the date she started work as a clairvoyant in Indianapolis and Terre Haute, but newspaper ads provide the answer. It
was 1860 when she was 21 years old. At the time Buck and Tennessee were residents of Cincinnati, Ohio. No ads for a "clairvoyant" Victoria Woodhull have been found prior to 1860 which is what you'd
expect if Tilton's claim were true that she began her career as a medium in Indiana.

According to Emanie Sachs, as a child Tennessee Claflin astonished people in Williamsport, Pennsylvania with her accurate prediction of a fire in the cupola of Dickinson Seminary, now known as Lycoming
College. Sachs wrote, "She must have had what might be called telepathic gifts too. When Buckman heard about them, he appeared in Williamsport, and on the outskirts of the town he put up a sign,
'Have your past read, and future foretold. T. Claflin.' The first fee was one dollar." That supposedly was the beginning of Tennessee's career as the "Wonderful Child."

Sachs didn't provide a
date for the seminary fire, but newspapers once again provide the answer. There was a fire in a cupola at Dickinson Seminary in 1858. That date was much later than biographer Johanna Johnston presumed. She
thought the seminary fire occurred when Tennessee was around the age of five or six. Around the same time as the 1858 fire there was an article about a girl "about 12 years of age" called Miss T. Clafflin [sic] who was "astonishing the citizens of Williamsport, Pa., by her extraordinary clairvoyant powers...."

There are no ads for Tennessee prior to 1858 which is what you'd expect
if she began her career in Williamsport. That same year Victoria was living in Chicago, Illinois far away from her sister and mother who were staying with relatives in Williamsport. It would be difficult for Buck to exploit Victoria when he was in Pennsylvania and she was in Illinois.

After Williamsport, Sachs told a story about Victoria and Tennessee creating "spirit music" at Mrs. Webb's boarding house in Mt. Gilead. Since Victoria and Tennessee were living in Mt. Gilead in 1853, it would be easy to draw the conclusion that a fourteen-year-old Victoria and a seven-year old Tennessee were working as
clairvoyants there in 1853 or earlier. That conclusion is likely wrong. Sachs found a Feb. 1860 newspaper article in Mt. Gilead advertising a traveling Tennessee "the Wonderful Child." The
legendary seance in Mt. Gilead could've occurred in 1860 or later when the Claflins were visiting relatives in Mt. Gilead, or they could've performed the seance for free before Buck realized they could make a living from it. After the account of Mrs. Webb's boarding house, Sachs said little about Victoria's clairvoyant work prior to Indianapolis.
She wrote, "Victoria joined them occasionally, but the testimonials in the newspapers were addressed to Tennessee...." Sachs reprinted no ads about the child clairvoyant Victoria. The only ads she reprinted were about "the Wonderful Child" Tennessee. If Buck promoted both Victoria and Tennessee as child clairvoyants, why are there no ads for Victoria? If Buck Claflin was a "snake oil salesman" when
Victoria was a little girl, why is the earliest ad for "Miss Tennessee's Magnetic Life Elixir" from 1866?

The early ads for Tennessee claimed that she began traveling with her family at the age of eleven. Even if the ads were correct that Tennessee began her career at age eleven instead of age twelve, it would
still be too late for Victoria to have performed as a child clairvoyant. Victoria was an 18-year-old married woman living in Illinois when Tennessee was eleven, provided Tennessee was born in 1845. If you take into account the additional wrinkle that Tennessee's exact year of birth is unknown and she could've been born as early as 1843 if the 1850 census is correct, that would make 1854 (1843+11) the earliest possible year that Tennessee could've worked as a child clairvoyant. Victoria was married and pregnant with her first child in 1854.

It makes for a good story to have the alleged
psychic abilities of two little girls exploited by their father in a traveling medicine show, but it's not the true story. Victoria and Tennessee didn't travel together as clairvoyant and magnetic
physicians until the 1860's when Victoria was an adult. All of this would have been apparent to previous biographers if they had taken the effort to find out the dates for Williamsport and Indianapolis rather than guessing and relying upon Emanie Sachs's biography.
Why the biographers relied on Emanie Sachs's inaccurate chronology instead of primary sources is puzzling. Sachs admitted not knowing when and where the Claflins were at times. She wrote, "It is impossible to fix the Claflins accurately in time or space after they left Homer in the late 'forties.
Like gypsies, they wandered for awhile, trackless in their obscurity, until a legend locates one of them."

Until a legend locates one of them....A legend, not a document, not a newspaper, not a court record, not the 1850 census record that shows Buck Claflin was in Homer after Sachs said he had left. That's the reason
the history of Victoria Woodhull's early life is so inaccurate. It's based on legends and not facts.

Sachs admitted that, too: "Hundreds who knew her, or whose parents knew her, have told me her legends. They are hearsay evidence, but inasmuch as they came from disconnected sources, without any reason for animus, they are consistent enough to be believable. And surely, when anyone has been interesting enough to inspire legends, they are valuable as an index of human behavior. Both the false and the true are significant, because both show what people thought and felt about Victoria Woodhull, what she meant in their minds and their emotions. Maybe she was merely a symbol of feminine activity in an age of male bluster when feminine activity was dreaded and feared. Maybe she personified men's erotic dreams, too, and women's audacious impulses and like Johnny Appleseed and Paul Bunyan and other Gargantuan American figures, she and her remarkable family were only half real."